


The Writer and Eraser

by whereismygarden



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-02
Updated: 2013-11-02
Packaged: 2017-12-31 07:15:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1028803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whereismygarden/pseuds/whereismygarden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Belle is an angel who visits the human world, and meets Mr. Gold.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Writer and Eraser

                He was dying: he could feel the burning, spreading pain in his left arm and chest, heard his cane clatter to the floor as he dropped it from suddenly shaky fingers. Gold knew, as he sank painfully to the floor, knee burning, that no one would be by, because no one ever was. He went home alone every day, and they would find him maybe midday or afternoon tomorrow when he didn’t show up at his shop or come for rent.

                Still, knowledge of death didn’t make him any more willing to actually die—not his body, anyway—and he ended up gasping for air, chest heaving, on the smooth polished floor of his house. He would have liked to reconcile with Bay, meet the grandson the investigator had told him he had. A bad heart, he thought dimly, maybe in more ways than one. He felt light-headed and drunk with pain. He couldn’t think…

                He should have died, and for a moment, he was certain he had. But he was still sitting on the floor, and there was still a sharp throbbing in his chest, and his cane was where he had dropped it. He was not alone.

                There was a figure crouching before him, with one hand reached out to lift his chin. The hand was oddly cool, and very strong and gentle. He blinked and focused: a woman in white, with blue eyes so deep he felt he was looking through time. She slowly lowered her lids and turned her head away.

                “Don’t look too long at Death’s eyes, Calum,” she said softly. It had been a long time since anyone had used his first name, and with such care. Death. Well, he was dead after all.

                “Didn’t expect Death to be a pretty girl,” he said, and winced. “Nor so painful.” The hand on his chin reached down and brushed across his chest, over his heart, and he could swear he felt cool fingers through several layers of fabric. The tightness eased, and he felt his head clear some more.

                “Just a messenger,” she corrected, and he heard a hint of humor in her voice. “Don’t you know that angels are watching over you?” He raised his eyebrows.

                “Oh?” He had never stopped to think that _anyone_ might be watching over him. “Is that what you are?” She turned her eyes on him again, and he could see all of time and life spinning away in the ocean of her eyes, a non-void, full of everything. Suddenly, he could believe that she was older than the Earth, set to watch the stars burn out and see humanity pass away in the blink of her eyes.

                “Fear not,” she said, still amused, and he looked behind her. Her presence was like light made flesh, but behind her trailed long wings of shadow and space, and they were almost as unsettling as her eyes. He settled for studying her hair, which though it had a certain glow, looked as though it were made of matter. “It’s hard for you people of earth and carbon and water to understand.” She stood up, her white dress—or robe or toga or tunic—falling all the way down her legs, leaving her barefoot and bare-armed. She took his shoulder and pulled him to his feet, and she was holding his cane somehow.

                “I’m dead?” He poked his arm. He felt as real and solid as ever.

                “No. I healed you. I didn’t want to see you die.” He snapped his head around to see the angel looking almost defensive. “Your life—it has so much potential.” She wiggled her fingers, and he swore they bent the light like prisms. He laughed, feeling in shock. She frowned. “You doubt me.”

                “No one has ever thought that about me before, I can assure you—what’s your name?”

                The word she said had him clapping his hands over his ears, sounding like the ringing of the bell that would end the world.

                “Sorry, sorry! I forgot! Sariel, or Azrael.” She spread her hands out, and light and shadow stretched between them like a blade. “The Reaper, I guess. The Bringer of Death. The one who wants lambs’ blood on the doorposts. Rider of the white horse.” Gold blinked.

                “You’re Death, and you’re letting me go?” She rolled her eyes at him, making him dizzy. He needed to stop looking at them.

                “I’m not Death exactly, but you can think of that if you want to.” She shifted, wings passing through some of his things as if they weren’t there, and spread her hands. “I am not supposed to, I think. But we have some discretion. I watch Earth, you know, in little pieces at a time. A place, for a decade. I would not see you after I took you, and I would miss you.”

                Gold rubbed his nose as she put his cane back in his grip. The angel of Death would miss him. What a strange thought. Maybe he was in the hospital, or he was dreaming.

                “Well, thank you. I owe you.” Her face brightened like a child’s for a moment, and she bit her lip.

                “In your shop? Can I come and talk to you? I always listen to people, but I’d like to try to talk.”

                “Of course,” he managed. The angel of Death needed a friend. Bay would get a kick out of that, for sure, that she had chosen him. “Maybe try looking human, though, when people are about, so they aren’t scared?”

                “I know,” she said, sounding reproachful. “I know no one wants to see me as me.” She sounded sad, lonely, and it was absurd, but he felt an odd connection there. She sounded the way he had felt when he was dying alone.

                “I don’t mind,” he said. She raised an eyebrow, tilted her head.

                “You will be scared when I show you,” she hedged, but there was a hint of hope at the surface of her frightening eyes. He shrugged as best as he could.

                “I almost died. I won’t be scared.”

                She didn’t give a warning, just stood silently, and somehow, in a way that evaded his eyes, she was standing there differently: her eyes widened to two pure-blue pits and her skin drew tight over bones that shone white through the robe that was colorless, nothingness, not even blackness. The dark wings on her back deepened, became abyss and space with the dim, scarce light of far stars. Gold felt little and tiny, a blip in the existence of the presence that would scoop every cell in the universe into her cool hand.

                “Impressive,” he said instead, and then she was back to normal, the skull and wings gone behind the odd white dress and looking a brown-haired girl with striking eyes. She smiled and tugged at her fingers.

                “Thank you,” she said.

                “Your name sounded like a bell, and you have so many others. Could I call you that?”

                “Just between the two of us?” She smiled, and she had a very pretty smile when her entire skeleton wasn’t burning through.

                “Indeed.” She nodded brightly, and then he was alone again, feeling as though his house had just tilted and dimmed in the absence of her presence.

                He would have thought it only a dream, but his heart beat strong and steady in his chest, and some of the things on his shelf were moved. Bell’s wings had nudged them after all.


End file.
